It's time for Hollywood to understand that people who are 18 don't have that much money or sophistication. Okay, so a movie like The Avengers has broken records. It happens. The bottom line for Hollywood is the almighty buck. That's understandable. The 1% need to eat, too (even chateaubriand every day). But if the over-24 crowd is appreciated and things are marketed towards them, then maybe the 1% can have some Bernaise Sauce on their chateuabriand. I have no intention of seeing The Avengers. Neither do any of my friend (most have no concept of what it is).
I'm not writing to defend the Avengers, just to clarify. I don't think it should be put in the same category as Avatar. The Avengers has a history dating back to WWII with the introduction of Captain America. For me, the Avengers are almost as near and dear to my heart as DS. I collected Marvel comics and waited with bated breath each month for the new "CAP", Iron Man, Hulk (he was not an Avenger when I collected), and many, many others. Like DS these stories continued on and on like a soap opera. We learned in Avengers 57 that the android Vision was created from the burned out body of WWII era Human Torch. DS had multiple Quentins. Marvel had two versions of the Human Torch, one an android, the other a human altered by cosmic rays (see the Fantastic Four). I believe the Avengers deserves all the success it has achieved. It is the movie that I had wanted to see since I was ten years old and wondered if Thanos would conquer the universe with THE COSMIC CUBE. This little relic made the rounds, like the Hand of Count Pefofi. Doctor Doom wielded it, so did The Red Skull, and many other meglomaniacs. I could go on and on about parallels between Marvel comics and DS. I'm going to defer instead by merely stating that I think the appeal of the film goes back to the generation that first watched DS. Joss Whedon wrote a script that is true to that long and rich history.